1. Technical Field
The present application relates to surgical instruments, and more particularly, to surgical clip appliers having a plurality of clips for applying the clips to body tissues and vessels during surgical procedures, and an incorporated dissector.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Surgical clip appliers are known in the art and have increased in popularity among surgeons by offering an alternative to conventional suturing of body tissues and vessels. Typical instruments are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,030,226 to Green et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,431,668 to Burbank III et al. These instruments generally provide a plurality of clips which are stored in the instrument and which are fed sequentially to the jaw mechanism at the distal end of the instrument upon opening and closing of the handles at the proximal end of the instrument. As the handles are closed, the jaws close to deform a clip positioned between the jaw members, and as the jaws are opened to release the deformed clip, a new clip is fed from the series to a position between the jaws. This process is repeated until all the clips in the series of clips have been used.
During surgical procedures, it is often desirable to use a dissector or the like to separate organs or vessels from underlying or overlying tissue, connective tissue or the like. At times, the surgical clip applier is used in lieu of a separate surgical instrument (e.g., dissector) in order to perform the function of separating of the organs or vessels from the underlying or overlying tissue, connective tissue or the like. In doing so, the surgical clip applier may become gummed up, or the jaws of the surgical clip applier may be splayed out of alignment thereby effecting a formation of surgical clips.
Accordingly, a need exists for a single surgical instrument that can apply surgical clips and that can perform the function of surgical dissection without effecting the construction and/or operation of the clip applying features.